High-Quality Beef, Hold the Corn

Newswise — Dale Woerner, assistant professor of Animal Sciences at Colorado State University, focuses on meat quality, innovative fabrication, carcass-yield prediction, carcass optimization, and red meat nutrient composition. A key research challenge, he says, will be to develop systems for producing high-quality, affordable beef while using less corn and other cereal grains in the production process.

Grain-fed beef, he says, has provided the U.S. producers with a competitive advantage over other sources, but livestock production now competes with energy and other industries for grain supplies. Researchers and the industry need to develop systems using less grain and other resources while maintaining or improving beef quality and production efficiency. In his research priorities, Woerner says he tries to balance immediate needs within the industry with more forward-looking projects addressing the future sustainability of beef production.